There is just something about when a game is finally ready to be released into the wild, an un-describable energy. It’s part anxiety and part excitement. You want to keep pushing it off for “one more feature” or “just a little more polishing” but you know you shouldn’t. You watch the game build and then upload-waiting to push that publish button.
I’ve always been a firm fan of the minimal viable product development process. For those of you unfamiliar with the term the basic idea is to get a project to a base working state, release it, and provide updates for additional content and features. It’s pretty popular in agile programming circles because it encourages the actual completion of projects. It also tends to create higher quality products as well as getting a lot of more serious bugs out early in the design process. You have to have a lot of self control though to apply this concept to game development. Adding more features always makes you feel like it is improving your game but that’s not always true. For more information on MVP check out https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/mvp/#q=~(infinite~false~filters~(tags~(~’mvp))~searchTerm~’~sort~false~sortDirection~’asc~page~1)
Agile really isn’t applied much in #gamedev circles but it offers a lot benefits when compared to the traditional water fall methodology. It is easier to involve your community and adjust to major design changes. Agile products tend to evolve vs being designed so they are more likely to fit your specific community instead of what you think your community is. They also tend to be more robust products with greater ease in fixing bugs.
So how does agile apply to launching my first publicly available game well I just released what is basically the core of the game. As time goes on I will be releasing updates and expansions. It will be fully supported so if you have any issues with it please let me know and I will do my best to fix them. I’ve always loved how CD Projekt Red included expansions when you bought Witcher 3. Blood and Wine was a great expansion but one of the things I loved about it was you didn’t have to pay extra for it. I hate when I buy a game and I have to keep paying more for it to be fun. So one of the things I am doing is that when you buy a copy of Frost Bite all of the updates and expansions are included. I’ve even already got plans for a fun epilogue expansion. So get a copy. I promise it will be a fun time;)
Also in case you haven’t heard I’m doing a really cool giveaway to have a character in my next game #ScaryMermaid designed after you. All you have to do to enter is upload a video of yourself playing or reviewing Frost Bite before Dec 31st and send me a link to it. You can get your copy of Frost Bite at https://gildedoctopusstudios.itch.io/frost-bite
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